If there is one tool that I can’t seem to shut up about, it is Hazel. It makes it really easy and efficient to process paperless documents[1]. The only problem is that Hazel is a Mac app, and I have struggled to find a Windows equivalent.
There are many Windows apps out there that will move files around automatically, but I have not found one with the key ability to move and rename files based on the content of a searchable PDF.
Fortunately, I received an email from Simon at Bitvaerk, and I begged him to add this ability into his new tool: File Juggler.
I am not sure how he will feel about me calling File Juggler “Hazel for Windows”, but that is how I think of it. Like Hazel, File Juggler can do many things with your files, but I will be focusing on using it to process your paperless documents.
Create Rules
The way File Juggler works is you tell it to watch a folder (or folders), and create rules that tell it to take some sort of action when something happens in the folders that meets those rules.
Watch A Folder
Create a rule, and tell File Juggler to watch some folders.
Tell It What To Look For
Next, create your rule. What is it you want File Juggler to watch for? One nice touch is that as you are building your rule, it will show you a list of the files that matches it.
Here are the conditions that it currently supports:
Tell It What To Do
Once you’ve told File Juggler which files to look for, you can then tell it which actions to take.
There are some variables you can insert, which is helpful when you are renaming files.
You can see a whole list of the actions that you can take on the File Juggler page.
A Work In Progress
File Juggler has come a long way since I first started playing around with it back in January.
There are still a few glitches – for example sometimes it doesn’t pick up some text from a certain file where it will pick up other text from that same file (so there is usually some text you can work off of) (This is much improved now), and sometimes it takes a while for a rule to kick off. The latter might be because my Windows computer is a piece of junk though.
Simon, the developer, is very responsive and is constantly improving the tool, so I am confident these will get sorted out.
You can download File Juggler from their site and give it a try. If you decide to purchase it, it is $25.
If you’ve tried it (or another “Hazel for Windows” tool), please leave a comment and let me know how it works out for you.
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Heck, I even did a webinar on the subject. ↩
